Calendar for November 6th, 2012

Election Day (United States)

By an act of Congress in 1845, the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November was designated Election Day for future presidential elections. The first such election took place on November 7, 1848. Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor won out over Democrat Lewis Cass and Free-Soil candidate (and former president) Martin Van Buren. Taylor's running mate was Millard Fillmore, who became the nation's 13th president on July 10, 1850, upon Taylor's untimely death.

1810s

Born 1814: Adolphe Sax (inventor & musician)

1850s

Born 1851: Charles Henry Dow (founder of Dow Jones & Company)

Born 1854: John Philip Sousa (composer)

1860s

1860: Abraham Lincoln was elected president

Born 1861: James Naismith (invented game of basketball)

1870s

1879: Canada's second national Thanksgiving Day after confederation

1890s

Born 1890: Henry Knox Sherrill (clergyman)

Died 1893: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (composer)

1900s

Born 1907: Charles W. Yost (diplomat)

1920s

1923: Electric shaver patent awarded to Col. Jacob Schick

1930s

1934: Talking headlight installed on locomotive, Schenectady, New York

1940s

Born 1946: Sally Field (actress)

1947: Meet the Press made its television debut

Born 1948: Glenn Frey (musician)

1950s

Born 1955: Maria Shriver (newscaster)

1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower won reelection

1970s

Born 1970: Ethan Hawke (actor)

Born 1972: Rebecca Romijn (actress)

1980s

1984: President Ronald Reagan won reelection in an electoral landslide

2000s

2003: National Public Radio announced the largest donation in its history, a cash bequest from the will of the late philanthropist Joan Kroc of about $200 million. The nonprofit organization called the donation the "largest monetary gift ever received by an American cultural institution."